By Kevin Kolodziejski
Read it and you can feel as if you’ve traded places with Oliver Hardy way back when.
Way back when he was half of the Laurel and Hardy comedy team, in the middle of shooting a movie, and his partner Stan Laurel screwed up again. So now it’s time to say the catchphrase that’s become part of our culture.
“Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into.”
Butterflies Aflutter, Just Below Your Diaphragm
Except what you’ve read is not really a screw-up, per se. But it is why you have that butterflies-aflutter feeling just below your diaphragm. In your never-ending attempt to maintain good health by eating mostly good stuff, you’ve once again come across contradictory nutritional data.
And though this may produce the aforementioned soul-swapping experience, it certainly is no laughing matter. Proof positive: There’s not a single bit of contradictory nutritional data in any of the Laurel and Hardy classics. But it seemingly abounds everywhere else, which puts you in jams far worse than the ones Ollie gets Stan into.
Because you’re not acting; you’re living your life. Trying to stay as healthy as possible. Trying to feel good and go fast (well, relatively fast) on the bike when life allows you to sit on the saddle and pedal.
Questionable Food Research
Now we need to acknowledge that contradictory nutritional data is sometimes good, sometimes proof positive of progress. But many times, it’s proof positive of the opposite. That food companies have banded together and funded questionable research in an attempt to “sell” a food as being okay to eat regularly when any more than occasional consumption of it has been found in past research to be . . . well, questionable.
A fine example of this came to light in a 2016 historical analysis of the sugar industry and specifically a group called the Sugar Research Foundation. The analysis uncovered studies in the 1960s and 1970s where the end results had already been determined. Results that would find the main cause of heart disease to be fatty foods, not sugary ones. Those shady studies altered how we viewed both fat and sugar for decades.
But if you see the 1960s and 1970s as ancient history, consider a second example Theresa Tamkins cites in a 2019 article for WebMD: “Why Science Can’t Seem to Tell Us How to Eat Right.” Funded by dairy industry groups, this study discovered that a cheese- and meat-heavy diet was better for increasing HDL — the “good” cholesterol — than a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet. Which contradicted several prior studies that found the opposite.
But less-than-honorable-research intent is not the only reason there’s so much contradictory nutritional information — or even the most likely one. A far greater contradictory-information creator is that it really is impossible to do a food study that is flawless.
Why They’ll Never Be a Flawless Food Study
Let’s say, you want to create a flawless study to determine if blueberries, one of the so-called superfoods, merits the term. For starters, it would need to be performed on a rather large group of people. While 10,000 is seen as the ideal, let’s agree upon recruiting 1,000. Whatever the number, however, it would be crucial that the participants be a nearly equal mix of males and females from every age group and represent dozens of differing nationalities and ethnicities.
Those 1,000 would need to remain in a strict laboratory setting for the entire study, which should be lengthy. While 10 years would be best, once again, let’s settle for less, say a single year. During this year, all 1,000 participants would need to eat the same diet every day, with one exception. Half would have the blueberries sneaked into their foods undetectably (possibly by blending it into a smoothie).
Another absolute must to make the study flawless —and one which is certainly sure to interest you — is that the amount, intensity, and type of exercise of all the participants has to remain the same as it was prior to it. Any change here could create others that could be incorrectly attributed to the consumption or non-consumption of the blueberries. Moreover, to make sure the placebo effect plays no role in the results, the researchers and the participants can’t know during any point of the study which participants are eating or are not eating the superfood.
Now you, not as an Oliver Hardy impersonator but as the reader of food studies, need to keep all of this in mind so you don’t come to see any single food as the be-all and end-all. Because what contradictory food studies really prove is that the best way of eating is based upon your unique metabolic responses to different foods. And they are unique, for sure. If you find that hard to believe, you’re probably unfamiliar with the granddaddy of all bio-individuality research.
The Granddaddy of Bio-Individuality
This study was performed at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and published in Cell’s November 2015 issue. It lasted one week and involved 800 Israelis between the ages of 18 and 70 who agreed to wear continuous glucose monitors (CGMs). None had type 2 diabetes and 22 percent were obese. According to the study’s authors, a comprehensive profile was created about each participant before the study began. It included information about food and lifestyle habits, medical background questionnaires, typical body measurements, a panel of blood tests, and a single stool sample.
During the time the participants were connected to CGMs, they logged all meals, sleep, and exercise as they engaged in “normal daily routine and dietary habits.” Normal except for breakfast. The researchers provided that, one of four different types and each consisted of 50 grams of “available” carbohydrates.
Afterwards, the researchers analyzed the CGM data, factored in what they found in the stool samples, and combined it with the other accrued health information. And they discovered, as study co-leader Eran Segal told Science Daily, “profound differences,” and sometimes “opposite responses” in how the same foods affected the participants. For a sense of how profound and how opposite, consider a story the other co-leader, Eran Elinav, shared with Science Daily about one participant in particular.
One Participant in Particular
She’s a middle-aged woman with obesity and prediabetes who had repeatedly failed to lose weight by “healthy” dieting. As part of her healthy dieting, she consumed tomatoes and did so “multiple times” during the course of the study. When she did, the CGM recorded something that isn’t supposed to happen. Her blood sugar levels spiked. Eating a tomato in her particular case was the metabolic equivalent, let’s say, of you eating a slice of white bread slathered in jelly.
Maybe.
For while both foods almost always cause blood sugar levels to skyrocket when they’re eaten, the fact that tomatoes aren’t supposed to but did the same for somebody makes the use of the word necessary. Unless, that is, you eliminate all maybes by wearing a CGM for far longer than the one-week study. Far longer’s needed because foods are rarely eaten in isolation but frequently in differing combinations. So even if that slice of bread slathered in jelly creates the expected blood sugar spike in you, adding peanut butter alters that.
As does changing the type of bread or jelly or using a different style of peanut butter. To what degree is a matter of your bio-individuality. Don’t see this as a curse, however. Accept it as a challenge.
The Challenge: To Use Your Hammer Well
This article hammers home that you’re a bio-individual, which means the conclusion needs to hit the nail on the head. It’s a nail you might want to whack as well — assuming you do not have type 2 diabetes and need to use a CGM (an expense typically covered by insurance) as a result. For the out-of-pocket cost of continually using a CGM solely to enhance health is prohibitive.
That nail is to keep a fairly detailed food journal, look for patterns in it, and learn from them.
If you want to use an app instead, that’s fine. Just keep in mind that the more senses you engage in learning, the quicker it takes place and the more likely it is that you retain it. Which is why pen and paper trumps smart phone and artificial intelligence in this instance.
Kevin Kolodziejski began his writing career in earnest in 1989. Since then he’s written a weekly health and fitness column and his articles have appeared in magazines such as “MuscleMag,” “Ironman,” “Vegetarian Times,” and “Bicycle Guide.” He has Bachelor and Masters degrees in English from DeSales and Kutztown Universities.
A competitive cyclist for more than 30 years, Kevin won two Pennsylvania State Time Trial championships in his 30’s, the aptly named Pain Mountain Time Trial 4 out of 5 times in his 40s, two more state TT’s in his 50’s, and the season-long Pennsylvania 40+ BAR championship at 43.